


Stage 2: Audience

by Teland



Series: Stage [2]
Category: due South
Genre: Introspection, Jealousy, M/M, Self-Hatred, Yearning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1999-07-17
Updated: 1999-07-17
Packaged: 2020-12-21 01:56:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21066875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Teland/pseuds/Teland
Summary: The Consulate is dim and silent even for itself.





	Stage 2: Audience

**Author's Note:**

> The Spike wants, the Spike gets.

Fraser stares at the phone that was supposed to ring twenty minutes   
ago and... aches.

It's late Saturday morning and in only five minutes he and Ray will   
be late for their lunch reservation.

//"Christ, Frase. What are we, dating now?//

And he'd had an answer he wanted to give for that, but in the end   
he'd merely calmly explained how grateful Mr. Montoni had been for   
their help, and how it was customary for such imagined debts to be   
paid with gifts.

And not how he sometimes dreamed of just feeding Ray, fingers to soft   
mouth and wet...

But the phone hasn't rung and the Consulate is dim and silent even   
for itself. Fraser's work on the Montoni case meant Inspector Thatcher   
had had to take Turnbull with her for the U.N. event.

A ghost of a smile flitted across his face at the thought of Turnbull   
meeting an entirely new and unsuspecting group of people.

It lasts until Diefenbaker reminds him of the food they're missing. 

He wishes he didn't know what Ray is doing.

He remembers walking into the precinct yesterday with the clarity of   
a brand on the mind. The usual tired smiles and greetings, the usual   
careful blankness in response to the usual casual predation from   
Francesca.

And then there had been Ray, and the slow, easy smile on his face,   
and the dark circles under his eyes.

And the bruises on his arm, his throat...

//"Ray, what happened --" And he knows before the question has been   
even half-spoken and blushes.

//Teasing smile, easy and so calm. "Never knew you were a voyeur,   
Frase."

//And he blushes again. Because the bruises on Ray's arm are   
fingerprints. Large, blunt, male fingerprints.//

Ray had caught the look in his eyes and the calmness in his smile   
evaporated faster than alcohol on skin, leaving a chill beneath   
Fraser's skin. Maddening.

Ray had run a quick hand over the bruises and then looked a   
half-angry question in Fraser's eyes.

And Fraser had done his best to erase whatever mistake had been in   
his eyes and not said another word until Ray offered the neutrality   
of a difficult fraud case.

Periodically, Ray would meet Fraser's eyes for seemingly no reason   
save to remind him that he was staring. Helplessly. 

//"Let this one get away, too, eh son? Gave another man your duty?"//

And he's close enough to himself to realize that raspy voice is not   
*truly* his father's, but once the words are said there's nothing he   
can do about them. 

After his shift, Ray had wordlessly driven him back to the Consulate,   
fingers beating a fast, brutal tattoo on the wheel. When Fraser had   
tried to ask "who is he?" the only thing that had come out was "would   
you like some tea?"

And Ray had smiled at him then, the baffled white flash of a tired,   
wary animal and said he'd already made plans.

Saturday, twelve-fourteen p.m., and every bone in his body knows that   
the... person who used Ray so... so...

//Did he fight?//

Fraser knows, and there's something *living* -- or at the very least   
motile -- that wants nothing more than the clench in his jaw, the   
as-yet-stifled swing of his arm that would knock papers, glass to   
the floor. 

He can see the scatter of debris. Can almost see how the small   
treasure of the lamp would almost explode from the first set of   
cracks.

Fraser feels all this, and knows the words that will lash him when   
he's finally back in control enough to hear them... and yet the   
still, silent phone holds his attention with an easy arrogance of   
power.

Diefenbaker growls from beside him.

"You were watching the doughnut on Detective Huey's desk, Dief. You   
did not see his eyes."

Fraser thinks the whine is almost the perfect pitch for the last   
exclamation of an individual who has been argued out. There is a   
certain rough economy to a lack of words.

//Ray walks to the water cooler, nearly languid with the lack of his   
usual bright, sparking energy. As he brushes past Fraser cannot help   
but inhale, deeply and quietly.

And barely holds in the snarl at the scent of... skin. Flesh that has   
daubed, rubbed Ray all over with its own dark, acrid scent. It hadn't   
been noticeable over the bitter coffee fumes and the underlying musk   
of the station itself, but this close...

This close it's inescapable.//

"You. Have. No. Claim. Here."

The voice comes from directly behind his right ear, and this time   
it wears the full regalia of his father, his ghost from regulation   
Stetson to regulation boots.

And the quiet something that always rests behind his father's eyes   
is so close to the surface this time that no part of him can pretend   
it's not death itself. It had been in Beth Botrelle's eyes, too, and   
probably always will be. 

He'd offered Ray nothing that night but a stiff hand on his shoulder   
and now.... "He's my partner." Clay pigeon of a sentence.

Humorless snort. "Barely." 

//"You just can't stop *picking* can you, Frase?"//

Ray needs that from him, craves the pressure of reason if for no   
other reason than to have something to push against, but Fraser has   
never been able to say it. His memory can repeat the question in so   
many different tones of Ray now that there's no point in denying   
anything.

He waits.

"You're just going to sit here pretending not to think about him   
getting abused by some stranger --"

"Would it be better if I knew who it was, *Dad*?"

"I didn't raise you to have a smart mouth, Benton."

"You didn't raise me." The words are worn things, and come out with   
no fire. Were you allowed to be angry at ghosts for not remembering   
what was said from visitation to visitation?

"Are you just going to sit here and hate? This... this *lethargy* of   
yours is unclean, son."

"So the bruises are mine, then."

"If you're foolish enough to claim them."

Do exit lines come with age?

Foils, son, foils.

And then he is alone with Diefenbaker and the phone and all   
the questions Ray didn't ask yesterday about his behavior, the   
accusations he, perhaps, didn't care enough to make.

When the stranger slept beside Ray, if the stranger stayed once he'd   
taken what he'd wanted, again...

When the stranger slept beside him, would Ray lie awake and wonder at   
Fraser's inconsideration? It's not as though Fraser didn't know he   
was staring and accusing in his turn. Will Ray think about all the   
things Fraser should have said and grow resentful? Weary?

Will he watch the front door stay closed?

Will his clock tick past a dozen empty seasons in a heartbeat?

Will he let it build within him? Will he nurture the quick bright   
hurts until they form the blade? 

Their blade. 

A partnership begun in deceit, ended in same.

Will he mourn? 

Or... will he fight?

Fraser breathes deep, desperate to catch some wisp of responsibility,   
honor he can borrow. His vision clears of all but the foyer itself,   
his uniform has been abandoned for what Fraser has known as recreation   
wear whether the playmate was Innusiq or a wounded bear. 

Fraser stands before the door to America and narrows his eyes in   
preparation.

Questioning growl.

"Today we hunt, Diefenbaker. Today we hunt."

End.


End file.
